Carnival-Like Mall or Why Not Some Fresh Air?

Nowadays, school vacation treats are generally indoors, like going to the mall. Having spent my school vacations and all-year free time playing outside with friends, I have no doubt that the international modern time-bomb epidemic of juvenile obesity can be traced to indoor activities, like going to the mall.


Bouncing on these blow-up toys just doesn't compare to the hours and hours my friends and I spent outside on our bikes and rollerskates. Nobody drove us any place, because when I was growing up, the few cars were generally used by our fathers to go to work. The large (then they were too large for the neighborhood's needs) parking lots in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY, were mostly empty during the day, so we had lots of space for jumping rope, skating and biking.

Instead of colorful balloons floating up high, we ran with kites.

I chose to live in a yishuv, small community here in Israel to reproduce as much as my childhood for my own kids. Now in Israel, some kids are kept indoors, which is a terrible shame and a endangers their future health.